A “paw” refers to the foot of poultry, such as chicken, turkey, quail, duck and the like, once the foot is removed from the bird. In conventional poultry processing plants, the bird is hung on an overhead conveyor and killed. As the bird continues to move along the overhead conveyor (referred to as a picking line), the foot or paw can be cut or otherwise separated from the rest of the carcass.
To have a paw that can be sold requires that the knuckle (or knee) of the paw be removed. Further, the paw needs to be correlated to the carcass from which it was cut. That is, the paw needs to be indexed so that the paw is traceable to the bird from which it was cut. This is required so that, if a carcass is condemned, the corresponding paws can be identified and also condemned.
Conventional paw cutters can cut the paw while the paw is in a shackle of a picking line. Cutting while in the shackle though can cause quality issues and/or improper cuts. Other conventional paw cutters can remove the foot from the shackle for cutting. However, moving the foot from the shackle can lose the indexing of the paw with the carcass. Further, there is also inconsistent cutting with conventional paw cutters.
Accordingly, it remains desirable in the pertinent art to provide a paw cutter that cuts consistently and provides indexing so that the paw can be traced to a carcass.